Google Doodle Teaches You How to Make Hip Hop

You might as well kiss any goals of being productive today goodbye, Internet, because Google is celebrating the 44th anniversary of the birth of hip hop with an interactive homepage doodle that lets you be a DJ — and you'll probably want to block off a good chunk of your day to play around with it.

Not familiar with how hip hop came to be? Let Google school you:

"On August 11, 1973, an 18-year-old, Jamaican-American DJ who went by the name of Kool Herc threw a back-to-school jam at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx, New York," the Web giant wrote. "During his set, he decided to do something different. Instead of playing the songs in full, he played only their instrumental sections, or 'breaks' — sections where he noticed the crowd went wild. During these 'breaks' his friend Coke La Rock hyped up the crowd with a microphone. And with that, hip hop was born."

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In celebration of this historic musical event, Google wants to teach you how to make hip hop. Today's Google doodle features interactive turntables and a virtual "crate full of hot records," showcasing "some of the beats used in the beginnings of hip hop." Start with the tutorial, and you'll learn about the turntable's crossfader, how to scratch the record, mix two records in the same key, and more.

The experience is narrated by hip hop icon Fab 5 Freddy, former host of "Yo! MTV Raps," and the doodle features a sweet logo graphic by graffiti artists Cey Adams. Lyor Cohen, the former head of Def Jam Records, who last year became YouTube's first Global Head of Music, served as an executive consultant on the project.

"Hip hop has done exactly what its founders set out to do, whether wittingly or unwittingly," Cohen wrote. "It placed an accessible culture, relatable to any marginalized group in the world, at the forefront of music. In that spirit, here's to BILLIONS of people getting a brief reminder that 'Yes, yes y'all! And it WON'T stop!'"

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